Fence Building

“I honestly don’t know how to keep living with this!” – Glenn

Fence Building

Tears were streaming from his eyes.  His voice was cracking from strong emotion as he spoke.

“I honestly don’t know how to keep living with this!  I don’t know how you continue to do what you’re doing.” Glenn said as he spoke, to another, of his experience of rescuing others from extreme danger, people who would surely perish without receiving aid from others.

She listened to him with compassion and responded with, “It fuels me to work harder to provide relief to others.  But, yes. It’s hard every day.”

It was a discussion that seems to be more and more common these days, I thought.  One could characterize such as conversations about fence building.  At least, those were my thoughts while driving, just two days ago, when one particular fence caught my eye.

It was a yard, perimeter cedar privacy fence.  You know the kind; about six feet tall, weathered, painted-red and surrounding the back yard of someone’s house.  I wouldn’t have noticed it at all had it not been on an expansive corner lot as I turned from the road in front of the house to drive south to go to another meeting.  It was the fence’s worn red color that caught my attention first.  But, it was the sign posted on that fence, it’s contrast, that caused me to drive on a little further, to a point where I could safely turn around and go back.  Go back to that contrast and observe it more carefully so as to absorb its message.

It’s a distinctive message painted on a piece of standard plywood, about four feet long and perhaps two and a half feet wide.  The printed words are stenciled in paint, including those on the black mail box perched on the bottom right-hand corner of the contrasting white sign.

The printed-upon-mail-box lid reads, “Prayers Here” with an arrow pointing down, toward an opening.  The front of the rectangular box reads, “Thank God for his love.”  And all of the lettering on this black box is a stark white. While all of the lettering on the white sign is a midnight black.

The words stenciled on that white sign read, “PRAYERS WORK!  Place your written prayer request in the box.  Someone will pray for you. Or take a request and pray. Requests kept confidential and anonymous.”

So, I pulled out the pen, which is almost always tucked into the front seam of my shirt, just above a button to help hold it in place.  I scribbled a note on a scrap of paper; a receipt from a purchase a day or two before.  Then, I opened my car door, stepped onto the paved road, lifted my right foot onto the curb, walked across the sidewalk, opened the box and dropped my note into the box.

“For Glenn and all others like him, who are building fences!  Not to divide or keep others away, but to protect others, the down-trodden, those needing shelter.”

I paused, pulling the lid of the mail box down, giving it a little pat, while sweeping my lingering fingers along its smooth surface.  Then, I turned back toward my car, walked a similar path back, slid into its cocoon and sat for a moment. Pondering.

That’s when I rehearsed the words spoken by my friend David about one week ago.

“There are days when I just want to stay in bed and pull the covers up over my head.”  He said.  “People are so mean these days!”

So, of course, I added another request to that little black box, hanging on that fence.  That’s when it dawned on me that this painted-red cedar fence was originally built to separate, to divide.  Yet now, the same fence is purposed to build protection for others, offer hope to the down-trodden and provide respite to those needing it.

I thought of the tears streaming from my friend Glenn’s eyes again.  His voice was cracking from strong emotion as he spoke.  I remembered him and David.  This painted-red cedar fence had reminded me that we’re all fence builders, every one of us!  

“What kind of fences am I building?”  I asked myself as I began to drive ahead again, vowing to generate more purposefully created fences of hope, respite and kindness that very day.